


Midwinter Melting

by Evandar



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Dating, Developing Relationship, First Dates, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Yami passes, Yuugi freezes. It takes a budding romance with Bakura Ryou for him to melt once more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midwinter Melting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alecto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alecto/gifts).



> Alecto - I'm more familiar with the dub than I am with the original Japanese, but I have read the manga. The characterisations here are something of a mix between dub and manga. I hope that's okay!
> 
> Your prompts were wonderful. This one really caught my attention, and I very much enjoyed writing it. I hope you enjoy it just as much.

Landing in Domino, after saying goodbye to Yami - Atemu, rather - and sending him on into the afterlife, is strange. It takes Yuugi a week of drifting through life before he realises that he's lonely. After that comes a brief flash of irritation with himself, before he remembers that he hasn't actually been alone for the last eight years. There was always the Puzzle and its steady weight around his neck, and even when he _wasn't_ wearing it, there was still the dark, comforting presence that radiated from its surface. 

His friends, of course, are still around, and that just makes him feel guilty. With Jou and Honda and Anzu by his side, he shouldn't feel lonely at all. But he does. Because Yami is still there, in the spaces between them. He's in Anzu's slight disappointment that Yuugi isn't as quite so perfect; he's in the relief that Jou and Honda try to hide. They remember the early days better than Yuugi does, and having heard the stories of fire, madness, and scorpions, he can't bring himself to be angry at them. 

Yami was their friend, but in some ways he still frightened them, and he _can't_ blame them for that, no matter how much he wants to. It's not their fault he's gone; it's kismet, and no one is to blame. 

Not even him. 

...

He's not sure when, exactly, he resigned himself to a life in mourning, but he has. _That_ realisation comes to him four months and six days after Yami’s - after _his_ departure. 

He's on the counter in his Grandpa's shop, leaning on the counter and watching the snow fall. Not even watching it - it's more a blank stare into the middle distance that breaks only when a cold, pointed finger presses hard into his cheek. 

He yelps and throws himself backward off his stool in shock. There’s a startled cry somewhere to his left, and even as he starts to fall, Yuugi tries to catch a glimpse of his assailant. 

There’s a flash of black and white in his peripheral vision. A glint of silver. Then there’s cold, long-fingered hands gripping his wrists, and saving him from cracking his head open on the counter. 

It's Bakura. His first thought, after he steadies himself back on his stool, is that it's Yami Bakura. He's swathed in the black leather coat that the spirit preferred, and there's a silver ankh is swinging from his right earlobe. There’s definite edge of wickedness to his smirk and an air of confidence that doesn’t look entirely real. And Yuugi, over the hammering of his own heartbeat, realises that he's being stupid. 

Yami Bakura is as dead and gone as his own yami. 

More importantly, Yami Bakura would never have reached out to catch him. 

"Sorry," he says, and Yuugi can hear concern in his voice, mingled with repressed laughter. "I did try and get your attention, but..."

Yuugi laughs, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I've been spacey lately," he says. "I - I'm sorry, I should have been paying attention."

Bakura smiles. His hand, still curled around Yuugi's wrist, is still cold, but it's the most real thing Yuugi's felt in months. He stares down at the long, pale fingers with their neat nails and strange callouses, and feels something like warmth sink into his bones. 

"You're not doing well, are you," Bakura says. 

Yuugi looks up at his face. There's no hint of humour anymore, but there's none of the pity he's grown used to seeing, either. Just a gentle type of wisdom that, he realises, Bakura has always had. 

"Not really," he admits.

Bakura squeezes his wrist gently, and slips around the counter to steal the spare stool. He says nothing. He doesn't judge. And as he talks, Yuugi can feel the pressure of grief beginning to ease in his chest. It's so unusual that it hurts. 

...

"Where did you go?" he asks. 

They're in Bakura's apartment. It's the first time he's been inside since he'd been trapped in a role playing game, and it's strange to see how much - and how little - has changed. The game pieces containing the souls of Bakura's childhood bullies are still there, up on a shelf over the elaborately painted game board, and there's the acrid smell of paint in the air. Traces of it are smeared on Bakura's fingers. 

But there's a sense of the place being lived in now. It's something that Yuugi hadn't really noticed last time, even though he'd known Bakura was new in town. He'd been so eager to play a game that he hadn't thought a thing about the person he was playing it with. 

_He's_ changed. 

Yuugi hasn't wanted to play a game since Yami left him. He hasn't wanted to do _anything_ , really, but now he finds himself wanting to know Bakura. _Everything_ about Bakura, including where he went to after Memory World. 

Asking is a distraction. He wants to know if Bakura's hands are always cold, and if he tastes of tea, and if he would leave painted fingerprints on Yuugi's skin if they touched again. 

Bakura sips his tea. "I went to visit my father," he says. He doesn't meet Yuugi's eye. "And then I went to the Ishtars. I... I wanted to make sure that Kul Elna was never found."

Yuugi grimaces. "And it won't be?"

"Marik said what was left of the ruins was swallowed up by the desert, just like - just like, you know, the tomb."

Yuugi feels his heart squeeze. "Good," he says. "They deserve to rest in peace -" he catches sight of the look on Bakura's face "- don't they?"

Bakura hesitates. He sips his tea again. And then, after a pause that seems to stretch on forever, he nods. His hair falls over his face, and Yuugi desperately wants to brush it away. 

He doesn't. He clenches his fingers around his mug and tries to stay as still as he can. 

"Is it strange that I miss him?" Bakura asks, his voice so quiet that Yuugi has to strain to hear it. "I mean, he was _awful_ , but for a long time, he was all I had. And I think - deep, deep down - beneath all the darkness and the anger - beneath Zorc, even - he was lonely too. Lonely and scared and - and I know he was never a good or even a vaguely pleasant person, but he was _there_."

"No," Yuugi says, and he's surprised that he actually means it. "No, it's not strange at all."

He has Jou. He has Honda and Otogi and Anzu. He has his mother and his Grandpa. He's surrounded by people who love him, even if he doesn't always feel like he is. Bakura has always been more on the outside. So much so that, in all honesty, Yuugi has never really contemplated how he might have felt about Yami Bakura before. 

"I'm sorry," he says after a moment. 

Bakura looks up at him in confusion, and this time it's Yuugi's turn to reach out. He curls his fingers around Bakura's wrist - his skin is so smooth and soft and warm, and the words very nearly dry up - and squeezes lightly. 

"I'm sorry," he says, "for not being a very good friend."

Bakura's smile is shy, and lovely in a way that makes Yuugi's heart skip and his stomach warm. 

"You're here now," Bakura says, and somehow, he makes that sound like the most important thing of all. 

...

Bakura, it seems, knows enough Middle Egyptian to show off in a museum. 

Yuugi might be biased, because he finds a lot of things about Bakura impressive these days, but it really _is_ quite wonderful to see him slide a fingertip over display glass and hear him murmur the translation under his breath. 

Especially, he thinks, when Bakura's other hand is tightly clasping his own. 

The handholding is new. It started when they entered the museum, really, and they had peeled off their gloves. Bakura's fingers had closed around his own, and Yuugi had stepped closer instead of protesting. They're both warm enough now to have lost any hope of passing it off as a desire to escape any lingering chill, and judging by the faint smile curling at the corner of Bakura's mouth, Yuugi isn't the only one enjoying it. 

He rubs his thumb casually over the back of Bakura's knuckles, and watches from the corner of his eye as Bakura's smile grows wider - though his translation doesn't falter. 

"Did your yami teach you?" he asks later on, as they find a seat in the museum cafe for lunch. 

It's quiet. The snow outside is keeping most people indoors, and if it hadn't meant not seeing Bakura, Yuugi would be tucked up in his pyjamas as well. Still, the quiet instinctively puts him on edge and makes him whisper. Just as well: he knows the question is sensitive. 

"No," Bakura replies. "He didn't." He shrugs and snaps his chopsticks. 

They've let go of each other to be able to eat. Yuugi is missing it already.

"He couldn't read at all, actually," Bakura says. "He was a peasant, so completely uneducated. Clever, though. Very clever. No, I taught myself. I have some of Father's books, and I've bought a few for myself over the years as well. _He_ thought it was hilarious that I could read his language better than he could - and saw it as another of my many weaknesses."

He finishes with a roll of his eyes. He's heard so many insults so many times that, apparently, he's stopped noticing how terrible they actually are. 

Yuugi can't _stand_ it. 

"You're not," he says. "Weak, I mean."

Bakura smiles faintly. "I know."

He's lying. 

Yuugi takes a deep breath, and slides his hand across the table. Bakura meets him part way, linking their fingers with ease. 

"Would you teach me?" Yuugi asks. 

There's a faint flicker of surprise in Bakura's eyes before his smile becomes transforms into one that is much more genuine. 

"Sure," he says. "If you want."

Yuugi does want, and when they return to the exhibit, he pays close attention to Bakura's explanations. By the time they leave - cast out into the snow as the museum closes early - he can recognise a few of the words on the coffin lids and stelae, and he earns himself a kiss for it. 

Bakura tastes of the mint he ate after lunch. It's sweet and leaves a light aftertaste that tingles on Yuugi's tongue as he walks home. 

...

The weather worsens. He runs up a terrible phone bill by texting and calling his friends at all hours. He misses them. He misses Bakura. 

More than once, he falls asleep while on the phone to him in the middle of the night. The third time his Grandpa finds him like that, snoring into the receiver, he threatens to ban Yuugi from using it. 

He never does. 

Housebound, Yuugi has nothing _to_ do except call people. His homework is done in a matter of days, and he wastes hours on the internet doing absolutely nothing. 

Bakura, he knows, is catching up on all of the schoolwork he's missed, and painting his game pieces. Yuugi's jealous that he has something so constructive to do with his time, until he remembers that he does too. 

His deck has been tucked away in the bottom of his suitcase since Egypt. He never unpacked it; has barely thought of it. 

He pulls it out in a moment of boredom and flicks through the cards. They're so familiar it hurts, and their energy - he's surprised to find - is still there: the faintest hint of Shadow Magic lingers in bent corners and worn edges. 

He can feel them, brushing up against the edges of his very being. They're still alive. Their heart is still beating strong. They're still with him. 

He presses them to his chest and bows his head. He's missed them so much - as much as, if not more than, he's been missing Yami. 

He sorts through them properly. He creates and discards strategies in his head as he builds a new duelling deck out of cards so old he knows them better than he knows himself. 

He doesn't phone Bakura to ask. He's got a sneaking suspicion that he already knows that the magic isn't dead. 

...

"Yuugi!"

He waves back at his friends as he rushes to join them, unable to keep himself from smiling. 

They're the same as ever: huddled up together, waiting for him, wrapped in scarves and coats. Honda's cycle helmet is missing – the weather is still too treacherous for him to ride it - and Anzu has a brand new scarf, but that's all that's changed. 

Except, he realises, for the expressions on their faces. They're _smiling_ \- to be more specific, they're collectively beaming at him, and it strikes him as unusual. 

He hasn't seen them smile at him like that since before Millennium World began. 

He's been blind, he realises. He hasn't noticed how much they've been hurting too - how much _he_ has been hurting them by acting like he's the only one with the right to be upset by Yami's passing. He quickens his step, eager to get to them and to be the friend that they deserve. 

But he's so distracted by what he's going to do, that he doesn't look where he's going and he slips on a patch of ice. He flails as he falls, and braces himself for impact, only for a pair of long-fingered hands to catch him. 

Again. 

He looks up into Bakura's laughing face and grins. "We have to stop meeting like this," he says. 

Bakura's laughter is sweet. The feel of his arms winding around Yuugi's waist and the taste of his kiss are even sweeter.


End file.
